Pace rounding (Read 998 times)

blimoco

posted: 12/4/2011 at 1:03 AM

Hey there,

I'm guessing this has come up before, but wondering if there is a reason why the pace calculation always rounds up?

For instance, I had a recent race that calculates out to a 7:04.19 pace, but it shows up as a 7:05. I would think either a standard round would make sense (.5 or higher, round up... <.5 round down) or just show the fraction of the second in the pace calculation.

Anyways, just a suggestion...figured this would be the place! Thanks for all the work on the site!

The only reason I noticed is because my Garmin rounds down and RA rounds up.

"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

blimoco

posted: 12/4/2011 at 10:01 AM

Ha. Not looking for any extra credit. I figured there was a conscious decision to round up..so was curious more than anything. I'm semi-new to this, so wasn't sure why rounding was different than it is in other places such as garmin, race result postings, athlinks, etc. What CliveF makes sense, though. Ideally, if it's different everywhere maybe an exact pace could be used. Not sure if that's possible.

FWIW, the first time I ran the mile in high school, I ran 5:00.1 (indoor track, 13 laps to the mile, we only ran 12 laps -- I dunno why). I was ecstatic at running "five-flat" ... 'til Coach broke the news that I actually ran a 5:01.

That's how I learned about this rounding-up garbage.

"I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."

When a race is hand-timed, it is always rounded up: 4:45.52 would be recorded as 4:45.6. FAT times (electronic systems) are not rounded at all, so a 3:59.99 would be sub4, if FAT. Not sure about a 3:59.991--but if you had equipment sensitive enough, I imagine they would just say that was your time.

Not sure what Eric's reasoning is, but I'm not sure if it's something worth worrying about.

FAT times (electronic systems) are not rounded at all, so a 3:59.99 would be sub4, if FAT. Not sure about a 3:59.991--but if you had equipment sensitive enough, I imagine they would just say that was your time.

Not sure what Eric's reasoning is, but I'm not sure if it's something worth worrying about.

They may not be manually rounded but the machine is doing it internally. The equipment they use for professional meets is far more accurate than the times they report, in terms of the technological ability to time accurately from when the system is started until when it is stopped. The reason they only report 2 decimal digits has to do with limitations in the precision of starting and stopping the equipment.

In other words, the timing equipment could differentiate between a 100m time of 9.881 and 9.883. However, they cannot count on the equipment at the start and finish lines to have the same level of precision (ie, can you tell within 0.001sec when someone's chest crosses the line? No).

"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

The reason they only report 2 decimal digits has to do with limitations in the precision of starting and stopping the equipment.

In other words, the timing equipment could differentiate between a 100m time of 9.881 and 9.883. However, they cannot count on the equipment at the start and finish lines to have the same level of precision (ie, can you tell within 0.001sec when someone's chest crosses the line? No).

So, basically if you had equipment sensitive enough, they would just tell you your time in 1000ths. (But actually they probably wouldn't because who cares!)

Does the timing equipment always round up--taking 3.991 to 4.00? I don't know the answer to that. [nor, does it matter, not would it be relevant to RA's log functionality.]

So, basically if you had equipment sensitive enough, they would just tell you your time in 1000ths.

The equipment IS sensitive enough, and such times can be recorded. However the thousandths place is not reliable due to inprecision unrelated to the timing ability of the equipment. So it is not used for record purposes. If it were, I'm fairly certain people would care. At least in the sprints.

The equipment IS sensitive enough, and such times can be recorded. However the thousandths place is not reliable due to inprecision unrelated to the timing ability of the equipment. So it is not used for record purposes. If it were, I'm fairly certain people would care. At least in the sprints.

I am guessing that this is another case of not being abe to fully trust wikipedia, then. I was an age group swimmer in the '80s and there was a period where thousandths were used in that decade. Unless it took FINA officials over 10 years to make the change based on Gunnar's result, the two would be unrelated.